Acro bytes by Kurt Foss

Bob Connolly can make a PDF file sing and dance! Literally.

As founder of pdfPictures.com, a Toronto-based company specializing in convergence technologies, his work with interactive PDFs stands as a vivid rebuttal to the still-evident attitude that Portable Document Format files are static and meant only for documents to be printed.

In his book and full-content CD “Dynamic Media: Music, Video, Animation, and the Web in Adobe PDF,” he not only shares some great, real-world case studies from his rich-media publishing for numerous commercial clients, but he explains and illustrates the workflow for producing PDF files that can include audio, video, Flash animations, QuickTime Virtual Reality photographs, 3D objects and more.

Our recent interview with Connolly about the book includes a free sample chapter — Digital Magazines and Rich Media — for download. And check out this 15-minute video introduction to learn more about this excellent resource.

Adobe Systems has posted free patches for the Windows and Macintosh versions of Acrobat 8 (Professional and Standard), which will update the commercial products to version 8.1. Licensed users of Acrobat 8.0 can download and install the updates by using the product’s “Check for Updates” feature:

Acrobat > Help > Check for Updates

They can also be downloaded from Adobe.com:

Windows: Adobe Acrobat 8.1 Professional and Standard update (English, French, German and Japanese)

Macintosh: Adobe Acrobat 8.1 Professional update (English, French, German and Japanese)

Also available is the free Adobe Reader 8.1 for the same platforms; which can be downloaded directly from Adobe.com:

Reader 8.1

Key enhancements include:

Acrobat 8.1 for Windows:

Support for Microsoft Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit versions)

Support for Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32-bit and 64-bit versions)

Support (including one-button PDF file creation) for Microsoft Office 2007

Integrated FedEx Kinko’s Print Online: Send any PDF directly to FedEx Kinko’s Print Online for printing

Acrobat 8.1 for Macintosh:

The Mac OS X version now includes improved support for Adobe Flash files with multimedia

The InDesign Plug-In update supports communication with Adobe InDesign for Creative Suite 3

Integrated FedEx Kinko’s Print Online: Send any PDF directly to FedEx Kinko’s Print Online for printing

Adobe Reader 8.1:

Support for Windows Vista 32-bit edition & Vista 64-bit edition

Improved forms performance

Acrobat 8 3D support: Precise CAD data (PRC), Product Manufacturing Information (PMI)

Integrated FedEx Kinko’s Print Online: Send any PDF directly to FedEx Kinko’s Print Online for printing

More details about the varied fixes and improvements for both Acrobat 8.1 and Reader 8.1 are available in respective Adobe TechNotes:

TechNote: New features and issues addressed in the Acrobat 8.1 Update

TechNote: New features and issues addressed in the Adobe Reader 8.1 Update